The fight for a front-row seat is off this year, as London Fashion Week goes digital for the very first time while lockdown measures against the coronavirus continue.
While Fashion Week events around the world have been cancelled — Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Australia was called off ahead of its May dates — the team behind the London event have evolved its offering to live in an online-only format.
The British Fashion Council (BFC) announced the event will now take place across the previously scheduled dates for London Fashion Week: Men’s of June 12 to June 14. While in-person shows will no longer be able to run with live attendees, an online hub will be launched with a regular stream of new and exciting content.
The digital platform at www.londonfashionweek.co.uk will relaunch to embrace “the cultural commentary, creativity and humorous spirit for which British fashion and London are known for,” the BFC said in a release.
Caroline Rush, chief executive of the British Fashion Council, says: “By creating a cultural fashion week platform, we are adapting digital innovation to best fit our needs today and something to build on as a global showcase for the future.
“Designers will be able to share their stories, and for those that have them, their collections, with a wider global community; we hope that as well as personal perspectives on this difficult time, there will be inspiration in bucket-loads. It is what British fashion is known for.”
The site will be brimming with exclusive multimedia content from designers, creatives, artists and brand partners, that include British GQ, Mercedes-Benz, and TONI&GUY.
Fusing fashion, culture and technology, the platform will house interviews, podcasts, designer diaries, webinars and digital showrooms for both a global public and trade audience.
Rush says: “It is essential to look at the future and the opportunity to change, collaborate and innovate. Many of our businesses have always embraced London Fashion Week as a platform for not just fashion but for its influence on society, identity and culture.
“The current pandemic is leading us all to reflect more poignantly on the society we live in and how we want to live our lives and build businesses when we get through this. The other side of this crisis, we hope will be about sustainability, creativity and product that you value, respect, cherish.”
London’s online Fashion Week may have taken cues from Shanghai and Tokyo, both of which cities adapted their Fashion Week offerings to a digital space, but the event is also going gender-neutral for the very first time.
The new digital space will merge womenswear and menswear into one gender-neutral platform for the next 12 months, to “allow designers greater flexibility”.
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